San Francisco, CA June 3, 2010 -- The Wikimedia Foundation today announced two important new hires. Barry Newstead will join as Chief Global Development Officer (CGDO), and Zack Exley will join as Chief Community Officer (CCO). Both are new positions, hired to fill out Wikimedia's senior team as it prepares to launch its new strategy, which calls for growing readership and new editors, particularly in the Global South.

As CGDO, Barry Newstead will be responsible for increasing readership and supporting editor self-organization in the Global South, for overseeing communications with the general public and the media, and activities aimed at supporting and developing chapters.

Newstead joins the Foundation from The Bridgespan Group, where he spent the past year helping the Wikimedia Foundation develop its five-year strategic plan. Previously, he worked with The Boston Consulting Group (BCG) for eight years and in 2004 he joined the Bridgespan Group, the nonprofit consulting organization created in partnership with Bain & Company. While at BCG, Newstead worked extensively in southeast Asia, greater China, South Korea and western Europe. At Bridgespan, he led work in education innovation and social technology, which mainly consisted of working with CEOs on strategy development, organizational development and leadership issues.

Newstead was born in Cape Town, South Africa, and raised in Toronto, Canada. He has an undergraduate degree from the University of Western Ontario, and a master's degree in public policy from the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. Barry has been married to P. K. Lee for 12 years.

"It is an honor to be joining the Wikimedia Foundation," offered Newstead. "The Wikimedia movement has achieved unbelievable feats to date and I am excited to work with the community to help realize Wikimedia's vision: to reach every single human being."

"I am thrilled that Barry's agreed to join us," said Sue Gardner, executive director of the Wikimedia Foundation. "His extensive international experience and his background in organizational development will be hugely valuable as Wikimedia shifts its attention towards the Global South, and towards accelerating development of our international network of chapters."

As Chief Community Officer, Zack Exley will be responsible for developing the Wikimedia Foundation's relationships with key constituencies including readers, editors and donors.

"Zack will be a terrific addition to the Wikimedia Foundation," said Gardner. "He's spent his whole career helping people self-organize to achieve their goals, and he has a track record of helping mission-driven organizations run effective online fundraising campaigns. It's a very rare mix of skills, and I'm delighted we found him."

Exley brings to Wikimedia a wealth of experience in serving communities of online volunteers. He joins Wikimedia from the Chicago-based firm Thoughtworks where, as principal consultant, he oversaw strategy and technology projects for organizations like Obama For America, Rock the Vote, and Global Zero. Prior to that he served in senior campaign leadership roles with the UK Labor Party, John Kerry 2004, and MoveOn.org. With the Washington DC-based communications firm OMP, he has worked as a strategist and advisor helping many of the largest mission-driven organizations in the U.S. advance their fundraising and volunteer mobilization goals. He has also worked as a labor organizer and software developer.

Exley grew up in Connecticut and has also lived in Kenya, China and the United Kingdom. He has a BA in Economics from the University of Massachusetts.

"Wikimedia is the most incredible thing on the Internet: hundreds of thousands of individuals working collaboratively to produce a resource on which a significant portion of humanity relies -- overseen by an emergent, organic, voluntary community and funded by readers and editors," said Exley. "It's amazing and I'm ecstatic about this opportunity to be involved."

The Wikimedia Foundation is the non-profit organization that operates Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. According to comScore Media Metrix, Wikipedia and the other projects operated by the Wikimedia Foundation receive more than 374 million unique visitors per month, making them the 5th most popular web property worldwide (April 2010). Available in more than 270 languages, Wikipedia contains more than 15 million articles contributed by a global volunteer community of more than 100,000 people. Based in San Francisco, California, the Wikimedia Foundation is an audited, 501(c)(3) charity that is funded primarily through donations and grants.